What are our German colleagues saying?

sdai · November 17, 2006

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Or purchase the D3 accordingly. at least that one doesn't have flaws

The 4/3 idea itself is a flaw.

November 17, 2006

Hi sdai,

Take a look here What are our German colleagues saying? . I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!

November 17, 2006

Dana they made a choice give you better corners without aberrations but have less IR flltering or put more filtering in and cause aberrations and less sharpness. Design flaw or not they made that choice and you have what we have right now people screaming about it. Frankly this is not so bad i would rather have the sharpest images without aberrations and deal with the IR filters if that is the choice I have. Just give me the firmware and the new C1 profiles and i may just be happy with this design

November 17, 2006

Dana read this from Digital Outback , you'll see what i am saying

11/9/2006 Leica statement about "IR issues"

We quote again from a Leica note to us:

"„Background information on the IR barrier filter of the LEICA M8 and its positive effect on color fringing, image resolution and the rendering of black synthetic fibers”

The glass cover of the image sensor of the LEICA M8 is a combination of the IR barrier filter and a specially coated protective glass. The transmission in the red and infrared region of the spectrum can be controlled by the layer thickness of this filter. In the case of the Leica M8, which is a very compact system, the thickness of the filter, 0.5 mm has proved to be ideal. The short back focal length is the base for the compactness and the high quality of the standard and wide-angle lenses. However, the resulting oblique angle of the incident light on the sensor requires special adaptations of the filter.

Absence of color fringing / Image Resolution

The extremely thin layer of the filter, 0.5 mm prevents color fringing at the corners of an image. This phenomenon, which is also known as astigmatism and is frequently encountered with digital SLR cameras, is not a problem for the LEICA M8 because of the thin glass cover on the image sensor. This feature, plus the particularly high imaging quality of Leica M lenses, is the reason for the high corner-to-corner image resolution.

Rendering of black synthetic fibers

The elimination of color fringing and the improvement of image resolution results in higher IR sensitivity. This causes some synthetic textiles to appear an artificial-looking purple.

If the higher IR sensitivity has a disturbing effect in certain applications, e.g. fashion photography, LEICA Camera AG offers its customers a special IR barrier filter. This is screwed on in front of the lens and is an ideal combination of IR, UV and protection filter.

The use of the additional IR filter in front of the optical system has big advantages, as the filter does not create reflections inside the optical system. This enables the reproduction of the finest tonal values even in shadows.

The filter is supplied as an accessory with a special firmware adjustment, which will be available shortly after the planned market launch of the camera at the end of November 2006.

The IR/UV filter is only suitable for use with digital M cameras and 6-bit coded lenses.

The high IR transmission may also be a creative advantage for applications in the area of infrared photography."

Using an extra IR filter is expensive (different filter sizes needed) and not really convenient.

Leica may have chosen a weak IR filter to get a bit more gain out of the Kodak sensor. In many cases it may not be a real problem but in some cases you would need some extra IR filter. We expect Leica to clarify this issue over the next few weeks.

Related links:

arne_s · November 17, 2006

I am german and I am totally with you Guy. Probably your experiences with the IR-Cutfilters accelerate the development of an official Leica solution, even Jamie's C1 profile works may do that.

For me it is more pleasing to read here, than in the german forum. It is nicer to post pictures in the international forum, too.

Regards and thanks from Germany, Arne

@ Dana, german panther and tiger tanks stopped because of the same reason, that the german jet aircrafts were not flying, they had no gas! And that was fine, so the end of war was earlier, allied forces had less victims and Berlin got not the Hiroshima bomb.

FastFashnReloaded · November 17, 2006

Dana read this from Digital Outback , you'll see what i am saying

11/9/2006 Leica statement about "IR issues"

We quote again from a Leica note to us:

"„Background information on the IR barrier filter of the LEICA M8 and its positive effect on color fringing, image resolution and the rendering of black synthetic fibers”

Related links:

Let me clarify... I am NOT disagreeing with you re the weak IR filtering. I think having a weak IR filter is pretty kewl, actually. However, there have been cameras with weak IR filters before, and that doesn't automatically lead to the end product we see here. I can't say, because I haven't been in engineering meetings on this project, absolutely that the prototypes did or did not exhibit this issue. However, having been in electronics engineering for a long time, I can say that many, many times you have a finished product that works, you send it to production, and the production units suck.

Why?

Somewhere between engineering and production a little tiny fix didn't make it into the ECN, or production has an old build sheet, or a pick and place machine has been loaded with a wrong cap or resistor value.

What we are seeing is a lack of compensation in the firmware or because of a part problem the firmware can't compensate (value exceeds 255). As in the descriptor I sent you before, in a "TV", excessively hot green channel (RGB color space) will lead to magentas in the grey scale. IR has nothing to do with it. We can fix that in a CRT situation, but we can't adjust for individual channels in the M8, so we can't play with the levels precisely.

The sensors would have been built and tested at Kodak, they would have arrived a year ago so people could test the things, first on a test jig and then in a real body. If engineer Helmut Kohl had found himself looking purple, he would have said something. If the blacks had looked purple he would have said something. If the grey card had looked purple he would have said something. Then they would have fixed it.

sdai · November 17, 2006

...german panther and tiger tanks stopped because of the same reason, that the german jet aircrafts were not flying, they had no gas! And that was fine, so the end of war was earlier, allied forces had less victims and Berlin got not the Hiroshima bomb.

I've lived in both Germany and Japan for many years ... one of the differences between the two nations is - the Germans know when to give up and the Japanese never got it.

November 17, 2006

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Dana you may have a very good point there something had to happen. I mean this is obvious.

Anyway it is a new day and for our international friends here is a Arizona sunrise with the moon makinga apearence. This was on my way for coffee.

Hopefully it will be a bright day for Leica users

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November 17, 2006

Anyway it is a new day and for our international friends here is a Arizona sunrise with the moon makinga apearence. This was on my way for coffee.

If that would be part of my way for coffee, I'd probably never arrive.

H.

November 17, 2006

We do have some the best sunrises and sunsets in the World , i do have to admit that and most folks just ignore it here. Shame